


People Will Say We're in Love

by artificialmeggie (ohmymeggs)



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Christmas angst with a happy ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 21:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16982412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmymeggs/pseuds/artificialmeggie
Summary: They'd both foregone the awkward trips back home in favor of a quiet, private holiday together, during which they planned to barricade themselves in Trixie's apartment with piles of junk food, stacks of DVDs, and a newly admitted (though long-burning) passion for each other.The past two days had been positively perfect. And that's when the damn box had gone and ruined everything.





	People Will Say We're in Love

When they fight—ugly, honest to God, red-face, and ugly-crying fight, which doesn't happen that often, thank God—Trixie storms off to his bubblegum pink writer's loft and plays guitar until he calms down and Katya... Well, Katya is usually left picking up the pieces.

She knows he needs his space; he _is_ a Virgo, after all. But—she runs her hands over her knees and sighs as she hears the first angry chords of some '80s power ballad start off—sometimes she wants to be the one to storm off when things get too difficult.

Although, she supposes, her stint in rehab had been all the running away she was entitled to for the foreseeable future.

The day has been long and contemptuous and all in all the absolute last way she'd imagined them spending their first Christmas together.

They'd both foregone the awkward trips back home in favor of a quiet, private holiday together, during which they planned to barricade themselves in Trixie's apartment with piles of junk food, stacks of DVDs, and a newly admitted (though long-burning) passion for each other.

And the past two days had been positively perfect.

It was probably one of Katya's favorite Christmas mornings ever. They'd awoken with the bright morning sun and engaged in a bout of slow, lazy lovemaking, and Katya didn't think she'd ever grow tired of hearing Trixie call her name and watching him grasp desperately at her arms while she buried herself deep inside him over and over again.

Happiness was that warm embrace on the cold Christmas morning. (Cold for Los Angeles; their winter-hardened bodies both recalled Christmas mornings in Boston and Wisconsin buried in snow drifts so deep they covered the windows.)

She was more than happy to stay buried in Trixie underneath blankets for as long as time would allow. But eventually their growling stomachs had forced them out of bed, and Trixie had scrambled some eggs and made toast and Katya had run her bare foot up and down his calf while they sipped their coffee.

They'd snuggled together on the couch and watched _A Christmas Story_ approximately four times but never got all the way through it without one of them falling asleep or enticing the other into a make-out session just distracting enough.

Then finally, when Trixie deemed it dark enough, they'd decided to order in dinner and open presents.

And that's when the damn box had gone and ruined everything.

They're good at camp gifts, good at making each other laugh, and, for the most part, good at the whole relationship thing, surprise, surprise.

What they're bad at, Katya is realizing, is recognizing each other's limits.

She'd kept it simple with Trixie as far as gifts were concerned, replacing a few of his well-worn eye shadow pots, supplying a new pack of his favorite guitar picks, and tossing in a new Dolly t-shirt for good measure and because she'd seen it and it had reminded her of him and that was enough.

For the most part, her gifts from him had been very much the same—a pair of tiny porcelain fan earrings, three sticks of her favorite lipstick, a tube of the expensive MAC mascara that she steals from Trixie, but refuses to buy for herself.

Then, when all the wrapping paper had been pushed aside, when they'd foregone kissing (for the time being), when Katya was sipping hot peppermint tea and watching Trixie tune his autoharp in the glow from the pink Christmas tree in the corner, she started to think what a, if not entirely wonderful, then maybe, _definitely_ tolerable life it was.

Then Trixie had caught her eye and kissed the end of her nose and produced a credit card-sized box from God-knows-where and handed it to her with a sheepish grin.

She'd felt her stomach seize in that tell-tale way it did when she knew something bad was coming, but she'd slid her thumbnail under the corner of the wrapping paper anyway. Her trepidation was easy to place. Bad things came in boxes this size; big, bad _relationship-type_ things like jewelry, and it was impossible to relax because the tension that radiated from Trixie's body was palpable.

“Oh.” And it was truly all she could say in the moment. Because sitting nestled in the box wasn't jewelry. It wasn't makeup or anything else easy and simple. It was a key.

It was pink and shaped like Trixie's favorite guitar, but it was definitely a key, and the longer she stared at it, the stronger the nausea roiled in Katya's stomach. Finally, she had dropped it back into the box with a sigh.

“You've had a key before,” Trixie had said, almost whispered, brown eyes wide at Katya's reaction. It clearly wasn't what he'd been expecting.

“For emergencies,” she'd responded, teeth worrying against her bottom lip. “For when you're stupid and lock yourself out or when you're gone and I need to water your plants or whatever but not for... Not for this. I don't even know what this is.” And then she'd pushed herself off the couch and popped her thumb in her mouth and began chewing on the skin just under the nail. “A _key_ , Trix?”

He wouldn't look at her. He'd put his head down and started picking at a loose string on the upholstery and had staunchly refused to look up at her.

And Katya was angry because things are good, great, _wonderful_ even and don't they deserve this little piece of happiness after the utter bullshit of the last year?

“I was going to ask you to move in, but I guess that's probably not the best idea,” he had said slowly, precisely, still picking at the string on the couch and refusing to look at her.

Katya turns over the box in her hands. “Do you honestly think we're at that place yet?” But he does and she had known the answer before the question even left her mouth because if she were anyone else, they _would_ be in that place.

Her toothbrush is on his sink, red next to his pink one. She has shampoo and body wash and makeup and half her drag in the spare bedroom, for Christ's sake, and she can't remember the last time she spent a night alone in her apartment when being with Trixie was an option.

Part of her knows that she could be with Trixie for another year or two or maybe even five and she would probably react in the exact same way—it's not him, it's really, _really_ her.

Katya has always been terrified of commitment, of codependency, of letting someone in. Trixie has always craved it.

It's part of the reason they had resisted the obvious chemistry between them for so long. Wasn't it always the same old story: Trixie wanted a husband and Katya wanted to fuck around.

But more than that, during her time away from him, Katya had realized that she wanted _Trixie_ , and so she'd come back and they'd reconciled and now they were _trying_. She has a razor in the shower and a designated coffee mug and Trixie always makes sure to pick up her almond milk at the grocery store. They're having Christmas together—Katya actually kind of hates Christmas, but Trixie _loves_ it—and they were _trying_. But this... This was a key and a future and too many shiny possibilities for Katya to wrap her head around.

She _loved_ Trixie, but even love has boundaries. Love has _limits_ , and Katya has pushed and pushed those for Trixie, and she isn't sure she can push this one. She isn't sure she even should.

But before she could say anything, before she could swallow the fear and suggest they sit down and talk about it like the goddamn grown-ass adults they were, Trixie had snatched the box out of her hands and muttered something under his breath and stomped upstairs to his writer's loft like he does every time they fight. And there hadn't even been any wailing or gnashing of teeth.

Really, Katya thinks wryly, this one was fairly tame.

So Trixie is upstairs in his loft, picking out melancholy chords on one of his guitars, and Katya is downstairs picking over the pieces, sorting through every word she'd said like there was a way to avoid the fallout.

And maybe there was. But she would have been lying to herself and lying to Trixie and they both would have ended up miserable eventually.

Katya gathers her mug of now-cold peppermint tea and rinses it in the sink before wrapping herself up in a blanket and sinking back into the couch cushions.

Trixie's guitar echoes through the apartment.

 

*

 

He's been upstairs for probably an hour when the music stops. It's rarely quiet in Trixie's apartment. There's always noise of some kind, whether it be Trixie singing a Loretta Lynn standard, strumming one of his instruments, playing music from his record player or phone, or just their voices melding and meshing over his shrieks of laughter and her wheezing responses.

They are anything but quiet. They talk a lot and laugh even more and it's one of her favorite things about them.

But this silence, because it's so rare, is oppressive, and Katya is hyperaware when she is suddenly surrounded by the hum of the refrigerator and the traffic of LA outside the apartment and all the other little, constant white noises that surround her all the time but are lost in the constant din of her life with Trixie.

Then—she might imagine it, but it sounds real enough to pull her off the couch and up the stairs in her bare feet—she hears her favorite sound in the world: Trixie barely whispers his nickname for her.

“Kat...”

He's the only one allowed to call her that, and his voice is low and husky like it is every night when she twists their fingers together and pushes into him, but it's also heavy and broken like it was when she called and told him she was going away for a little while because everything was just _too much_ and her demons had caught up to her again.

She pauses at the top of the landing, fingertips trailing along the banister, waiting to see if she's imagined this whole thing, but then she hears him sigh and she decides she doesn't care because she wants him, probably always has, so she pushes open the door to the loft.

Trixie sits with his back to the door, small in the pale glow of the pink Christmas lights that constantly adorn the space. His acoustic guitar sits abandoned a few feet to his left and his knees are drawn up under his elbows.

He looks fragile and tiny, like a broken soul she's responsible for healing despite her inability to care for anything other than herself most days. It scares her. He scares her. They scare her most of the time, but she longs to take him in her arms and hold him to her chest and kiss him under his eyes and around his strong jaw until he doesn't look so shattered anymore.

“Trixie...” she says into the settling darkness. And then, when he doesn't respond, “Brian.”

His shoulders slump and he heaves a sigh, but doesn't turn to face her. “So that wasn't my best moment,” he says.

She sinks onto the hardwood floor beside him and reaches for his hand. “I don't think either of us is winning any awards for emotionally charged conversations.”

She studies his fingers, the tips calloused from years of guitar playing, and traces the lines in his palms with her index finger as she carefully considers her next words.

“I'm sorry I can't be what you want,” she finally whispers, her fingers tracing over his love line, thick and solid at the top of his palm. One true love to last a lifetime.

He turns to stare at her, eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line. “Don't apologize for the way you are. I won't apologize for how much I love you because that is the way I am and the way we are is what makes this work, Katya.”

“Does it?” Her voice is still low, barely audible, even in the quiet around them. “Does it work?”

She's been so scared of ruining everything that she's wondered before if they're ignoring flashing neon signs telling them that this is a terrible idea. Their careers are worth so much to them both; there's the show to think about, their professional relationship _had_ to come first, that's what they've always said.

But then Trixie's lips are on hers, a familiar pressure she forgets she misses until they're reunited, and she can feel her stomach flutter.

Katya's never really believed in love, but this—what she feels for Trixie—has to be pretty damn close.

Their kiss is chaste and simple and his soft hands (she loves his hands) caress the sides of her face gently when he pulls away and rests his forehead on hers.

“Of fucking course it works, you cunt.”

And she laughs because she knows. She knows he's right.

“I love you,” he says softly, carefully, testing the words on his tongue. It's the first time he's said it and really, _really_ meant it, and it means everything to her even though she can't make herself respond. It's just three words—four, if she adds on the kind of insignificant “too”—but Katya still isn't sure she believes in love, despite knowing that her feelings for Trixie are unlike anything she's ever experienced before.

She just kisses him and grips his knee. “I feel very strongly for you, too. I don't know if I'm ever going to be ready for the things you want, though. A key, a bold declaration to the world, saying... _things_ like you do. I just don't know if I can, Trix.”

“I know.”

And she knows he does. Because he knows her better than anyone has or probably ever will.

“It's okay?”

“It's okay.”

And he kisses her and she believes him.

Katya's never believed in love, but this thing between them, whatever it is (he'll call it love), just might be the closest thing she's ever felt.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my first venture into Trixya.
> 
> I geek out about all things Drag Race on tumblr at ohhmeggie, so come play!
> 
> Thank you :)


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